When did you lose your cool on social media?

Adam Richman, the former host of “Man vs. Food” and, more recently, “Man Finds Food,” got himself in trouble earlier this week on social media. The melee started when Richman posted a photo to Instagram of a (now too big) suit he got last year with the hashtag #thinspiration.

Apparently, that hashtag is associated with bulimia, anorexia and other eating disorders. Viewers called Richman out on it and he got defensive, swearing and being all-around nasty.

His show was taken off the air.

This got Brian, Chrissy, Jess and I talking about those times when you lose your cool online — be it in an email, on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or on a blog.

Share your story of when you were guilty — or when someone lost their cool with you. Select responses may be used on tomorrow’s Fly Morning Rush.

6 Responses

Not Guilty! Well, yes I have written angry emails in the past. But I never hit send right away. Instead I save as a draft. And I look at it the next day, 99.9% of the time I trash it and never send it. As far as social media like Facebook goes . . . I try to keep it light, happy, pleasant. I never never talk politics or religion there. That is how you can lose good friends or have family members become angry with you.

I could see myself getting angry at people who take social media too seriously, but in these days of super high profiles created by social media, you have to be extra careful, especially if youre a “public Figure’ But me, I never lose my cool, thats physically impossible!:)

I haven’t personally. However, I was Board President of an area nonprofit (never, alas, BORED President!) where Board members sent each other flaming emails and I spent considerable time trying to get people to understand a. we were ADULT board members of a legal nonprofit. Those emails could come back to haunt the agency b. it was egregiously unprofessional c. it was childish d. Their President had more important things to do than monitor their emails. It was a very fractious board and they seemed to use flaming emails to avoid confronting the very serious financial difficulties of the agency in question.

I exited FB when people increasingly became more polarizing/antagonistic with their passive-aggressive posts, which would then ignite a firestorm of comments both for and against the topic (how being a stay-at-home mom was the only “right” way to raise your child, how they wished the other political opponent would just die, etc.). It was way too dramatic and people made statements that I don’t think they would say in a face-to-face conversational setting. I maintain a FB and twitter account for work purposes only and do not feel like I am missing out on anything and appreciate the fact that I am not tempted to respond to people’s rude posts.